Thread local storage with gcc __thread keyword

gcc provides __thread keyword to make a global variable (or in general data segment variable) local to thread.

This may be required when you use want to use thread safe/specific data within your code.

Consider an example:

#include <stdio.h>
#include <pthread.h>

void iterate()
{
        static int i=0;
        i++;
        printf("Thread id: %x, i=%d\n", pthread_self(), i);
}

void* thread_func (void* data)
{
        iterate();
}

int main()
{
        pthread_t tid[5];
        int i=0;

        for (i=0; i<5; i++)
                pthread_create(&tid[i], NULL, thread_func, NULL);

        for (i=0; i<5; i++)
                pthread_join(tid[i], NULL);
}

Here is output:

Thread id: 6ebcc700, i=1
Thread id: 6e3cb700, i=2
Thread id: 6d3c9700, i=4
Thread id: 6cbc8700, i=5
Thread id: 6dbca700, i=3

Static will be part of data segment which is not thread safe. We can make it thread safe by adding __thread keyword. Here is modified snippet of program and rest all things remain same.

<snip>

void iterate()
{
        static __thread int i=0;
        i++;
        printf("Thread id: %x, i=%d\n", pthread_self(), i);
}

<snip>

And the output:

Thread id: 31339700, i=1
Thread id: 2f335700, i=1
Thread id: 30b38700, i=1
Thread id: 30337700, i=1
Thread id: 2fb36700, i=1

As far as I know, __thread keyword can only be used with POC types (Plain old C types) but not hybrid or pointer types (citation needed). In that case, next statement provides an answer to achieve it. Also there is obvious overhead using __thread keyword since it requires some internal manipulation to get the data of particular thread of interest. (A simple dig into the assembly code will reveal IMHO)

There are also pthread_getspecific() and pthread_setspecific() APIs POSIX provides for TLS. Will try to experiment on the same in future.